Writer: Oscar Wilde
Director: Max Webster
Dressed in a flamboyant pink ballgown, Eurovision singer and LGBTQ+ activist Olly Alexander sits at a grand piano. Crowds of androgynous figures in white tie writhe and dance through dry ice while Alexander strips off to reveal lilac silk shorts. Is this The Importance of Being Earnest? Yes, Captain, but not quite as we know it. In the next scene, Alexander is more recognisably Algernon Moncrieff, charming, stylish, quixotic London bachelor. From here until the similarly extravagant curtain call, Oscar Wilde’s celebrated comedy proceeds pretty much as scripted with a couple of extra same-sex gropes, some snatches of Cyndi Lauper or Bruno Mars and a lot of winking at the audience.
“In matters of grave importance, style not sincerity is the vital thing,” says Algernon’s cousin Gwendolen. Her throwaway line sums up the playful paradox of this glitterball show, Oscar Wilde’s light-hearted masterpiece. All the main characters in The Importance of Being Earnest are busy performing their own identities, and almost everyone is pretending to be something they’re not. Algernon tells his family he is visiting a gravely ill friend in order to escape from London’s stifling heterosexual dinner parties and go “Bunburying” (given the opening scene, the word takes on a more-than-usually euphemistic quality). His friend Jack (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) has invented a ne’er-do-well younger brother whose problems force him to leave his responsibilities in the country and head up to London. Both men have enjoyed their double lives for years. What could possibly go wrong?
Max Webster’s Importance has just transferred from the National Theatre to the West End’s Noël Coward Theatre and reopened with a new cast. The exuberant spirit that powered the production’s original outing has survived, despite the loss of Ncuti Gatwa, who played Algernon with a megawatt smile and lashings of charisma.
The restaged show feels a bit faster, more assured and slightly less pantomimic, but there are still moments when the intonation or pacing is slightly off. The relentless physical comedy (courtesy of Joyce Henderson) with elements of farce and charades-style signalling sometimes almost obscures the witty pleasure of the text.
Sharon D Clarke’s outstanding turn as Lady Bracknell in the original production, playing Algernon’s domineering aunt as a Caribbean matriarch, seemed irreplaceable. Stephen Fry, playing Lady B in the recast version and resplendent in green or purple satin, is totally different, but somehow equally fabulous. Hair and makeup designer Kate Elizabeth has transformed him perfectly with a relatively light touch and coiffured silver wig. Towering over some of the younger performers, both in terms of height and in a clearer understanding of the text, Fry sidesteps the temptation to ham it up panto-dame-style and delivers instead a freshly hilarious take on well-worn dialogues. Lady Bracknell sounds genuinely aghast and amazed to discover her potential son-in-law was left at Victoria Station “in a handbag”.
At the start of the play, the handbag in question hangs in front of the red velvet curtains. Rae Smith’s set and costumes are gorgeous. They are designed to be the campest, most joyous evocation of the English town and country settings, satirically ostentatious. Nothing that can be embellished is left plain. Smith has even redesigned the whole proscenium arch to give it a more music-hall feel with a gilded plaster bas-relief of carrots and onions at the top.
While an elaborate scene-change takes place behind the curtains, Algernon parades a series of amusing costumes (topless in a short kilt, a bare-chested Sherlock Holmes) before settling on radiant white linen with sheer lacy sleeves for the final acts. Later, he eats muffins in front of the curtain, taking care to stay calm or “the butter would probably get on my cuffs” until Jack observes: “We’ve covered the scene change now”. It’s one of many fourth-wall-breaking moments.
The Bridgertonesque designs, full of colour and ornament, become ever more lavish: opulent vases and velvet chaise longues give way to bowers of multicoloured roses and ornate cake stands. The last scene, inside Jack’s country mansion, looks out onto the garden through French windows topped with a peacock fanlight and framed by naked marble statues. Even the fruit bowl is excessively sexy, spilling luscious grapes and cherries from a huge pineapple-topped gold goblet onto a nest of figs and orchids.
Hugh Dennis plays the ageing Reverend Canon Chasuble, feebly hankering after Shobna Gulati’s Yorkshire-accented Miss Prism. When the Rev comments, flustered, “My metaphor was drawn from – er – bees,” Nicola T. Chang’s sound design provides just a hint of buzzing in the background. She has more of a chance to go to town on Lady Bracknell’s “Wagnerian” ring at the doorbell and Jack’s loud and desperate upstairs search for the famous handbag, causing Lady B to comment: “This noise is extremely unpleasant. It sounds as if he was having an argument. I dislike arguments of any kind. They are always vulgar, and often convincing.”
Jessica Whitehurst’s Cecily Cardew is pert and forthright, an excellent match for both mischievous Algernon and for fiery Gwendolen. The two women quarrel and then kiss over cake in one of several scenes that suggest the conventional surfaces of the play are simply masks that let the characters act on their real desires. Kitty Hawthorne plays Gwendolen as an overtly sexual woman; the “vibrations” produced by the name Earnest are clearly orgasmic. She also has a steely authority that suggests Jack’s fears are well-founded: “You don’t think there’s any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother in about 150 years, do you Algy?” he asks, to which Algernon replies, “My dear fellow, all women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”
Webster’s vivacious production reclaims Wilde’s queer legacy in glorious style and celebrates just how far society has changed since his imprisonment. With homophobia and transphobia on the rise, the twenty-first century is no utopia. But this hugely enjoyable show is a defiant rainbow flag that can’t easily be stuffed back in the closet.
Runs until 10 January 2026
